Flooring Suggestion – Upstairs rooms and Dog Woes

Q: We raise Shih Tzus dogs and we installed Wilsonart Flooring in a kitchen/dining/living area portion of our basement area a few years ago. Our dogs don’t stay on this area but sometimes they have an accident and we clean it up as soon as we notice it. My main problem with this flooring is that it shows everything, is difficult to keep clean, clean and it is noisy. The dogs run across the floor but have not scratched it which is the only good thing I can say about it. Right after I clean it, it looks great but it’s just been very hard to maintain.
My mother is 78 and has macular degeneration and can’t see very well. Unfortunately, she has a small dog that she is very attached too but she really isn’t able to take care of the dog and doesn’t let it out to go to the bathroom or forgets to let it out. The dog is ruining the carpet. My mother is also in a wheelchair and it is hard for her to move about on the carpet. I need to put some kind of flooring down that looks good in the den and hallway – that will stand up to dogs running and peeing and all the other things they do – but I’m concerned about the noise level for the basement. We do have insulation between the floors but it is noisy now from the upstairs and I’m afraid if we take the carpet up it will be much worse. What suggestions do you have? When we purchased the laminate flooring a few years back, we did not get any good information from any of the places around us in McDonough, Georgia (30253) area. This is a very large area upstairs and I don’t want to make another more expensive mistake than we made on the basement. We thought about the wood look vinyl but we don’t think that look keeps up with the type of house we have and it would probably also have the noise level as well. I also forgot to mention that my 3-year old granddaughter is here a lot and she is always dragging toys around too. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Barbara F.
A: Situations like yours can be very tricky, but the end all question here is durability vs noise. Laminate is your best bet when it comes to durability. Although its naturally louder than other wood floors, there are a few tips to help suppress most of the noise. The other thought would be to use something like cork. Since you have smaller dogs, I would have less worry of their nails digging into the floor.
For laminate, make sure to get a thicker laminate (usually 10mm+ is your best bet) and use a good underlayment for sound control such as cork or Sound 6. This will help reduce most of the noise. Also, use a lighter color as this can help hide some of the dust.
With Cork, look into a site finish to help give a bit of extra protection from pet messes. If you intend to site finish the floor, you will want to glue down the cork, otherwise, I would float the cork using a 3mm cork underlayment to give the floor a bit of extra sound suppression and keep the floor a bit more solid than if you use a foam underlayment. Cork is naturally resistant to moisture, but this does not mean it is impervious to moisture issues. As long as your installation is done with care and the locks on the floating cork engaged well you should have little worry about pet messes, but always clean them up ASAP.
A few tips with your pets to help reduce scratching. Always ensure you keep your dogs’ nails trimmed and should any longer hair (in the case of Shih Tzus) or fur (in the case of most of our pawed friends) be covering the pads on your dogs’ feet, trim this away to allow your dogs to use the natural traction of their pads, this will prevent them from digging in with their nails to get traction.
With your Granddaughter the cork will be a bit more comfortable to play on, but the laminate is naturally more durable. However, cork resists denting, so its a bit of a toss up. End result – laminate is very durable and with the right product and underlayment you can suppress most of the noise you encounter with laminate. Cork is great for comfort, sound suppression and is naturally moisture and dent resistant, but if some precautions are not taken, you can run into issues with it being too soft.